The magic of knitting
by hatschepsut92
Summary: Maggie, a Muggle-born young witch discovers her talent of knitting magic.


It was not as if Maggie Halbert had planned it that way. She had actually not even considered the mere possibility of an event like this. But it had happened, and even though it was years ago, it was the first thing that came to her, as she had finished reading through the funny looking letter from a place called Hogwarts and a lady called McGonagall. The smiling scarf. Her little piece of freedom, her birthday present to an ever-absent mother. She had knitted it, when she was eight years old, while her baby brother was screaming next door and all she wished was for him to shut up. When she was sure, if she fabricated such a wonderful thing, her mother would turn her attention back to her, as it had been before the arrival of stinky-Pete. She had only just learned to handle the knitting needles and was far from being able to knit fanciful things like socks and gloves (both of which she had mastered by now), so she went with an easy, monochrome scarf. On her mother's birthday, she had put the carefully wrapped gift next to her breakfast plate. With a smile, her mother had opened the package, and Maggie had thought for a moment that everything would go back to normal, but then she gave Maggie a kiss on her forehead, thanked her for the lovely gift, saying how happy she was that Maggie finally made peace with her brother, and put it around his tiny, undeserving neck. Tears had welled up in her eyes, and she had wanted to run away and hide, when she perceived, for the first time, her brother's smile. He had stopped crying, the second Maggie's scarf touched his skin. And that was the day, that Maggie learned to love her brother. She realized, that the cranky, moody baby boy he had been for the first few months of his life, did not exist, as long as he wore her scarf. Mind you, he misplaced it though (as had happened a few times, before Maggie attached a little chain so that he would not be able to lose it). All hell would break loose until it was recovered. Maggie had never again managed to produce something so extraordinary, which was not something she was upset about. But now, everything was different. She was a witch.  
Now I don't want to bore you with the struggles, a Muggle-born witch encounters before she understands enough of the wizarding world to feel at home, as they have been elaborately described elsewhere. What I want to tell you though, is how this particular little witch made her first new friend. On her first night, after the welcome dinner in the big hall, when all the students had retired to their beds and probably had fallen asleep within seconds, due to the happenings of the day, Maggie could not sleep. She missed Pete and her friend Suzy and (not least of all) her brand new smartphone, a gift from her mother. She had tried to call home with it but had not managed to turn it on. It must be out of battery and she had not yet seen a plug, to recharge it. Not really in the exploring mood, Maggie snuggled in a cozy chair in the Hufflepuff common room and pulled out her knitting work. She had been working on a particularly complicated pattern for a new pair of gloves (Pete was just growing up too fast), and after a while, her eyelids dropped and she yielded to the exhaustion that had slowly trapped her in the chair. As she woke up the next morning, with a stiff neck and rheum in her eyes, the gloves lay in front of her, all knitted and finished up. Maggie knew, that she should be asking herself, whether she had finished it without noticing it, or whether she had finished it while asleep, but she knew she didn't. So even though her first day at Hogwarts was, unsurprisingly, packed with new experiences and impressions, she did not go to bed the second night either, but stayed up, determined to find out what had happened to her knitting. While she waited she got started on a jumper. But as the day demanded its tribute she again fell asleep and found her finished work in front of her when she woke up in the morning. The third night, she decided to go to bed, and catch some sleep. On the fourth night, Maggie met Martha, a tiny little house-elf. The two of them became best friends, Martha teaching Maggie all she knew about knitting and Maggie making Martha laugh at the funniest stories about Pete and her best friend Suzy.  
Maggie never made close friends among her fellow students, and even though she mostly did not suffer from pranks and bullying, some incidents happened, one of them especially noteworthy, when Jennifer Brooks broke one of her knitting needles. For a lack of better alternatives (and also because somewhere in the back of her mind her thoughts trailed back to the smiling scarf), she thereafter used her wand, which unsurprisingly had the perfect shape to replace a knitting needle. And this was when things started to happen. First, the hat she was making, while she told Martha about their skiing holidays in Switzerland, where it had snowed for 14 days straight, kept dragging a puffy, white cloud behind it, from which a lovely drizzle of snow kept falling. Then her new gloves, which she knit while Martha tried to explain to her how to cook the perfect shepherds pie, developed the habit of grabbing any kind of food in their reach, without Maggie even being hungry. It didn't take Maggie long to try to purposely knit magic into her creations, and while she had a rough start (a jumper, that was supposed to sparkle in the dark went crazy as a disco light), she soon got the hang of knitting magic. (knitting magic seemed like the proper term, Maggie and Martha agreed, as Maggie further increased the complexity of the magic). One of her first successful creations was a hat, which colored the hair of the bearer according to their wish. She gave it to Jenny, who was astounded by it and never gave Maggie a hard time again.  
Neither did Maggie keep the scarf, that allowed its owner to sing the loveliest tunes in the fairest voice. Or the socks, that danced on their own, the knitted panties, that enabled their bearer to do splits and the overly affectionate jumper, that kept hugging anyone passing by. She gave them all away, slowing becoming better. As her skill increased and her education continued, she dared for more complex spells, such as the ear warmers that influenced the sense of gravity, (and gravity itself!), so that anyone who wore it could walk up vertical walls. Her one masterpiece though, she kept for herself. She had knit it on a, particularly stormy night in her fourth year at Hogwarts when she had just arrived back home from Christmas holidays. Pete had been facing a bully in school and Maggie was devastated not to be at home and help him out. All she wanted really, was to show Pete, that he was loved. The gloves she knit that night turned her carefully place air kisses into real kisses, dancing in the palm of her hand with a delightful little jingle, before she sent them on their way with a strong breath. She could see them flying out of the window, where they seemed to hesitate just for the tiniest fraction of a second before they hurled themselves into the raging storm. She kept these gloves for herself, using them, whenever she particularly missed her baby brother, or when she felt, that he might need it.


End file.
